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Someone Is Using My Art – How To Address It & Look At The Positive.

When you first read the headline to this blog post, the first thing you think of is, how positive is it when someone takes your artwork and uses it for themselves When your the one, who put all your hard work into the painting?

This is a fair statement to make, and I have thought of this myself, but my husband made me realise this. The first thing to think of is your artwork has reached a stage when someone else considers that your art is worthy of taking, and in my mind thats a positive thing. Why? I here you ask? Advertising is my first answer, first of all someone else is promoting your art and they love it so much to take it in the first place. Now I’m not condoning the fact that they stole the right of my or your artwork, but I’m trying to tell you to look at the positive rather than the negative first.

I know your first reaction what if what there selling your art as poor quality as they stole is from the internet. As most of us use poor quality jpg’s and pngs on the internet, which normally has a watermark on it. So somehow will have to try and remove the watermark, and badly before they use the image. So what are you going to do about it, it has already happened and you cannot do anything to change the fact, except take proper control to first contact them and then contact the platform they were selling your work from, in my case Etsy. Most people who do that will normally take your art down and the Etsy could shut the seller down.

So lets move in the Positives.

The first one is your art loved enough by someone who feels they can make money, this is great not only because they have the confidence to put your artwork onto there product they feel they can make money out of it. So try and find out what they did and how they used it and maybe you can offer a similar service in your business model.

The next one is FREE ADVERTISING… that means someone put money into there business hense marketing your art, that you never had too, this is a sign of success even though it came from a negative. You might be getting frustrated by now, because you might not be making a living from your artwork yet, just like me, but never the less its a sign of a first green shoot, a seed that you sowed and is growing. That in itself is priceless, its a confirmation that your heading in the right direction and your work is getting seen.

9 times out of 10 the way you found out about this is by a FAN or SOMEONE IN YOUR COMMUNITY… After a few or many years you start to realise your dream that you want to become a artist and try to make money from the things that you love to do. Because of the person you are, you naturally want to share your experience and help others to grow too, so here comes the fans of your art along with a thriving community that is there to support you and its these amazing folk who notice when something is astray and tell you about it. I can say a whole lot more than Wowsa folks. Thank you very much to all of you. Now you have found caring folk who want to help you and that is far beyond priceless its touching to the Soul. The main point here I want to make is no matter who we are and what we do in life most of us believe in the experience. The moments in time when you are present. If your like me we live for all the moments in our lives and we appreciate every second, so its great to turn as much as we can into a positive. Without my fans and my community I would not be able to do what I do, because you are the ones that enjoy what I do and add the real value in my life and that is creating. Hopefully inspiring you to follow in my footsteps. Some of you reading this will be the inspiration that inspired me and to you I carry on this message of positive thought, emotion and confirmation that your dreams are worth reaching for.

The least I can do is send a thank you gift to those who helped me find out and report the person or business. Which leads me on to “that person may be shut down and they will be known for stealing art”. They will have valuable lesson to learn here. Do not steal from others in order to be in business. You must be fair with your customers because they are huge part of your life. Most of us who buy from you want you to be honest and trust worthing more than the product itself, so have us in your heart when you do business.

As for the business concerned I received an apology email for them today which is the first I have ever received. I really appreciate that, if it was up to me I would not want there business shut down, but unfortunately its out of my control. Etsy has its own rules on copyright so were see what happens next. At the end of the day they did something wrong and will have to take responsibility for there actions.

Lastly networking, share your story because the chances are that there are other artists like you that have had a similar problem and you may be able to offer advice to help them. We all want to live in a world where we can help each other.

Negatives

1. Someone stole your art work.

2. They are selling it and making money.

3. They are not using good quality images, therefore showing your art in bad quality.

I guess you may find other negatives, but these are the main ones that I can think of at the moment.

Positive.

1. You art is loved enough by someone who feels they can make money.

2. Free Advertising

3. This is a sign of success.

4. 9 times out of 10 the way you found out about it, is by a FAN or SOMEONE IN YOUR COMMUNITY…

5. That person may be shut down and they will be known for stealing art.